Bilbao metro: a style icon which Dublin metro must emulate

At the moment DART is a strong brand and the logo is identifiable. Luas on the other hand has no particular style or branding. The stations are anonymous, unless you know to look for a half-finished construction site it is very easy to miss them altogether.

You're losing credibility now, John, claiming that the DART is a piece of beauty and the luas is a tatty tin can. I really think most Dubliners would argue the opposite: the luas has style and a strong "brand" while the DART has peak hour time savings and little more to offer.

We live in an era where perception is everything. The luas looks good so it is good. As the trendy Irish Times Index put it: "luas to Heuston. Takes the sting out of that dreadful train journey you've just experienced."

Luas on Friday and Saturday nights are heavily used as people head into town for a night of socialising. The luas trip is part of their night - it is a pleasure, not a burden.

If we get the aesthetics of the metro right, it will do the same, just like it has in Bilbao.

And please, no GAA exhibits in the metro stations. Leave that for a sports museum. Can you imagine it - a big green and gold station with 1970s Wexford jerseys hanging on the walls behind panes of bullet proof glass.

BryanW raised the issue of the Paris metro's signage. While beautiful in Paris, I think it would look of place in a city with no history of a metro system. The Dublin metro won't be anything like the Paris metro and that's probably a good thing because we've got a blank canvas to work from, they don't.

The Stockholm TBana is a good example of a system that was built with aesthetic vision in mind. I worked in Stockholm for a few months and had the pleasure of using the T-Ban every day, with its travelators, energy-efficient escalators and marvellous stations cut deep under ground, especially the university line.

Can't believe it has 47 underground stations though - in a city with the same population as Dublin. And here we have people wondering whether we should have an underground station at Trinity :rolleyes:

It would be shameful for Dublin not be build a visually stunning station at Trinity interchanging with Tara and showing the world that the luas wasn't a design once-off.

The Bilboa Metro is seriously sexy and yes that's how we need to promote public transport in Ireland. No more boxy trains and smelly locomotives

Couldn't have put it better.

Some more pics of the Bilbao metro to feast your eyes on...

To me, that is boring by comparison with a something like the travelator picture that I posted in #1.

There is an elite group of metro systems around the world that people are in awe of. Dublin has an opportunity to join this elite group by building a visionary metro system. So yeah, in that context, Drumcondra interchange is boring. It's not visionary or imaginative like Tara-Trinity.

We need to take off the integrationist's straitjacket and think outside the box, pardon the pun.

The people of Dublin do not need a metro system like one of the Eastern European countries: relentlessly grim, unimaginative, soulless underground hellholes that make going to work a daily drudge. Dublin deserves better.

My vision for Dublin metro is much more like that of Bilbao or Stockholm. That you take pleasure in stepping down into the metro system; the journey to work becomes an experience, not a chore. Futuristic things like underground travelators add to that experience in way that the experience stepping out onto the rainy footpath at the junction of Drumcondra Road and Clonliffe Road, then crossing the road and walking into CIE's antiquated Drumcondra station could never do.

Who exactly is going to use this Drumcondra interchange.. let's see. It may be useful for DCU and O'Connell Street.. but what about TCD and the 14,000 staff and students deprived of a metro station so that Betty from Blanch can get to Penney's on O'Connell Street three minutes quicker.

There is a danger of becoming obsessed about Drumcondra without seeing the wider picture.

Art, architecture and integration can be fused in a practical, beautiful and economically beneficial way at Tara-Trinity with a Bilbao-style travelator. Am I the only one who sees the potential here???

I think travelators are going to play a key role in shaping the great cities of the 21st century. It's not beyond the realms of possiblity that in 20 years time the CBDs will have a spider's web of underground travelators linking various streets, office towers and transport hubs. Because travelators save time, and time is money, there is financial argument favouring them.

The only way to beat the lure of the car is to provide transport solutions that empower people, save time, take away stress.

In Dublin we have a plan for MetroNorth, and it's a great plan, but now we're talking about dropping Trinity station so that we can have a metro station surfacing on the footpath on Drumcondra Road. I think this is unwise.

People don't want to traipse halfway across central Dublin, crossing the river. (Maybe they'll do it because that's what they're used to, but we have an opportunity to make people's lives easier.)

I never liked walking to Tara and Pearse; thousands of Dubliners surely feel the same way. I think it's wonderful that if Tara-Trinity you can walk into a travelator at O'Connell Bridge of College Street and be whisked straight into Tara Station without having to cross all those pedestrain crossings or get soaked in the rain.

That's a better future than no metro station at Trinity and no travelator to Tara.

Once the metro is built who will be approaching from the south of the city?
The metro north line terminates at Stephens green so all journeys will be coming in from the north.
Hence any of the 14,000 people at Trinity that you exclusively care about can a) change at Drumcondra for Dart 1 to Pearse, b) change at the O'Connell Street Metro stop for Luas BX or c) Change at Stephens Green for Dart 2 to Pearse. Customers on the Luas green line can just continue on Luas BX for Trinity.
I have outline a lot of journey options there, now tell me why your argument for Tara - Trinity is better than an interchange at Drumcondra, which will be the key interchange for Dart 1. ( Maynooth/Dunboyne - Bray ), and Commuter trains.

Look, my point is that Tara-Trinity achives all the futuristic visionary goals I have outlined above. In terms of journey possibilties, it does everything Drumcondra would do, only better, because it's faster, more modern, and brings people straight to where they want to go in a central corridor, not on some antiquated loop line that's hopelessly out of sync with the dynamics of Dublin.

You talk of the dynamics of Dublin yet you don't seem to realise how much the Maynooth line is growing. Why drag 1000s of Maynooth passengers to IEs Tara St to spend 5 minutes on a travelator to get on a Metro to go ... further North?

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"1000s" going north? I really doubt it. The existing Drumcondra station "integrates" with plenty of high-frequency bus routes heading North to the airport and Swords. In fact, the bus stop is closer to Drumcondra station than exit of the metro would be. I have never witnessed a passenger getting off a train at Drumcondra with suitcases to get a bus to the airport.

The reality is that if you live in most of the busiest stations along that line - Coolmine, Clonsilla, Castleknock, Ashtown - you are far better off using the M50 by car or taxi: that's what most people do, and that's what the motorway's there for. When Metro West is built, there is further option of interchange to the airport for passengers from Clonsilla and beyond.

Even in the world's most sophisticated public transport systems, people tend to shy away from two change public transport journeys. In the case of Maynooth line catchment area -Airport, there is a significant time saving to be had by simply taking a ten minute taxi trip by motorway. That's again why I think that an idelological belief that all lines "must integrate" may be mistaken in this situation.

On the other hand, coming from the South East area of Dublin via the Bray DART line, there is a time advantage for any Northbound journey to DCU or the airport. The best interchange station for these passengers is Tara Street as metro is a less delay-prone than DART and the line trajectory is shorter and more direct.

As far as Drumcondra goes I think that having a metro station at Drumcondra would, in itself, generate quite a lot of trip demand inbound towards the city and outbound for airport workers who currently use the 41s etc. And perhaps that's a valid reason to have a station there. But as an interchange... I don't think so.

Judging by the routes, if the Trinity station is built, there is scope for the Tara travelator and Drumcondra. That would be the best of both worlds: a fabulous jaw-dropping piece of interchange at Tara-Trinity which Dubliners will love, plus a more localised metro station at Drumcondra used by the people of that area for quick commutes to the city and airport, plus the occasional interchange passenger from the Maynooth line heading north to DCU or south to the Mater.

Now a direct seamless (via vertical interchange) change at Drumcondra to Metro or a trip into town, over the Loop line, down the stairs in Tara, down the stairs to the travelator, 3-5 mins on the travelator to get on the metro to pass underneath a location that you would have been at 15-18 mins previously.
All whilst possibly carting your luggage about. Doesn't sound like international best practice to me.
For the sake of your travelator Metrobest, is this what you would prefer?

See, if I thought that there really are "thousands" of people coming in off the Maynooth line who are just desperate to get to to the airport, I'd be first person on this forum demanding that an interchange be put there. The more mundane reality is that most trips are inbound heading for the city. That's what is going to generate the trip demand on this line, not trips to the airport, not trips to Swords as these are still going to be faster by car on the upgraded M50 with no toll bridge to go through.

Plus the Tara travelator makes life a whole lot easier for anyone on the Maynooth line heading to the College Green vicinity, as thousands indeed are with Tara being Ireland's busiest commuter station.

As for the travelator taking 3-5 minutes, I seriously doubt. I'd say two minutes and faster if you walk.

Does your future contain many fat people?

Hardly. Most people don't stand on metro travelators like lemmings - they walk. That's why they love travelators. Further-away destinations are reached faster and the same amount of calories burnt. Walkers keep to the right side; "standers" to the left.

You should also consider the benefits of travelators for the elderly and people with luggage - they make life easier.

I don't think they should build any more rail in the city. I envision people in clean fuel flying cars where congestion is no longer a problem and no one needs rail.

But then there'd be congestion in the air! That's been tried in Sao Paolo where all the top CBD business people commute by helicopter with landing pad on top of the skycrapers. So now the city suffers from a rather unique and noisy chopper "rush hour".

Attack the post, not the poster.

Tara Street loses business only if there is no metro station at Trinity and travelator.